News & Commentary

Missouri legislators have introduced more than a dozen bills intended to interfere with a woman’s access to abortion. Three bills (HB 1307/HB 1313/SB 519) that were recently debated in the Missouri House and Senate would block a woman needing an abortion from getting care for 72 hours. This type of measure harms real families in difficult situations and prevents doctors from providing care that is in the best interest of their patients.

Most governments don’t have the resources to manufacture the surveillance technology that’s required to hack into the computers of unsuspecting citizens. In recent years, surveillance software firms have stepped in to fill that gap, proliferating into what has become a $5 billion industry. In the TED talk below, ACLU Principal Technologist Chris Soghoian discusses the new methods that governments, including our own, are using to track their “targets” – which, in some cases, include journalists, activists, and dissidents.

There is a crisis that demands our urgent attention. For the last four decades, this country has been obsessed with expanding the number of people we throw behind bars and the length of time we hold them there. Crime rates have been falling for the last 20 years, but still we have a massive and unsustainable prison population, particularly targeting the poor and powerless. We're not strengthening communities, we're using our criminal justice system to throw away certain people's lives – disproportionately the lives of Black and brown men, women, and children. This has decimated communities around the nation and it's gone on for far too long.

I believe it’s possible that a private, for-profit prison can be operated in a responsible manner.  Based on my experience, however, the chance of this occurring is small.  Time and time again, the incentive to cut corners in order to maximize profits seems to trump the desire to operate a responsible facility.

Melinda Chateauvert will read excerpts from Sex Workers Unite! and sign copies of the book on Wednesday, March 12. For more information and to RSVP, visit http://sexworkersunite.eventbrite.com.

A conversation like this may well take place not far in the future:

In February 2014, the attorney general for the state of Utah did something remarkable, something that law enforcement officials hardly ever do: He willingly gave away some of his power. The power was too great, he said, and the potential for abuse too serious. Furthermore, the AG argued, the broad, unaccountable power was not needed to protect the public.

In his first conversation in front of an audience since his disclosures began making global headlines last year, Edward Snowden will appear via live video next Monday at SXSW Interactive, the festival that brings together tens of thousands of technology professionals and enthusiasts every year in Austin. He'll be talking to the ACLU's Ben Wizner and Christopher Soghoian.

In 2012, a pregnant woman in Colorado was arrested and jailed after being pulled over for a traffic violation. The reason? A debt collector went to court for a warrant for her arrest—not because she committed any crime, but because she apparently had not answered written questions in a proceeding to collect unpaid credit card debt. Her bond was set at $5,806—an exorbitant sum that just so happened to be the full amount of the debt she owed plus interest. Unable to pay, the woman spent a night in jail in yet another modern twist on the banned practice of debtors' prisons.